A detailed but awkwardly composed treatise on a key era of Israeli cinema.
A cinema scholar explores the sociocultural history of Israeli film in this volume of criticism.
Israel’s film industry was born in the nation’s earliest decades, as immigrants from around the world sought unity and a positive vision of Israel and Israelis. As such, the cinema culture of the country may be regarded as similar to and distinct from other “national cinemas” around the world. In this first of two volumes, movie critic Izhar, the author of Quit India (2011), looks specifically at the period from 1964 to 1977—an era that included several wars with Israel’s neighbors, a national political shift to the right, and a generational schism in the broader culture. After a brief account of the history of Israeli film up to the early 1960s, the author focuses his attention on three filmmakers in particular: Ephraim Kishon, whose 1964 satire about Israeli immigration, Sallah Shabatti, became an international success; Uri Zohar, whose youth-geared comedies questioned Zionist ideology; and Menahem Golan, whose crowd-pleasing pictures bordered on pro-government propaganda. The author argues that Israeli film not only found its voice in this 13-year period, but began to show a new divide between films with a more personal vision and those that attempted to speak for the nation at large. Izhar is a thoughtful analyst with a strong sense of Israeli history, and he makes persuasive arguments while also drawing on the work of other film theorists. However, his writing is rather clunky on the sentence level, with frequent typos and grammatical mistakes that act as stumbling blocks for the reader: “If the Israeli social and political paint one angle, Israeli cultural scene is more complex. During these years, Israel is drifting more and more from its Eastern European ethos, and is influenced either by Western European, in particular French one, and American on the other hand.” Readers who have a deep interest in Israeli film, however, will likely overlook these limitations. Even so, the lack of polish prevents the book from being a truly authoritative work on its subject.
A detailed but awkwardly composed treatise on a key era of Israeli cinema.Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-4899-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
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